Wednesday, May 7, 2008

UW-SC students show tolerance for opposing views on abortion.

See for yourself just how "tolerant" they are when pro-life group Pointers for Life put up a display of 4,000 crosses symbolizing murdered fetuses on campus at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point butted heads Thursday after an anti-abortion organization planted 4,000 white crosses on campus to symbolize aborted fetuses and a student responded by pulling hundreds of them out of the ground.

The display, sponsored by Pointers for Life and planted on Isadore Street outside the Health Enhancement Center, is called "Cemetery of the Innocents" and features crosses and anti-abortion and religious signs, one of which reads "Seek Jesus."

The group has come to expect minor vandalism each time it displays the exhibit, but students were shocked when Roderick King pulled up many of the crosses in protest.

"It's just so disrespectful, and it's disappointing that this comes from UWSP students. I've always thought of this campus as a tolerant place. ... Someone made these (crosses) with their own hands," said Pointers for Life member Tracey Oudenhoven.

King eventually left the site of the display after speaking with Protective Services officials, but he later returned to protest. King said his anger was not just politically charged, but also related to the anonymity of the exhibit.

"If you're not ashamed of this, then you should claim it and sign it," King said. "My student dollars are going to support this, this travesty."

Pointers for Life reserved the space but didn't indicate its sponsorship of the exhibit. At King's request, students eventually posted a sign reading, "Sponsored by Pointers for Life."

Students put up the exhibit early Wednesday. By Thursday morning, some signs had been slashed and a few crosses had been broken. King said he didn't participate in those acts.

Why bother letting someone with a different opinion than you speak out or protest?

Let's just imagine it was the other way around, and a pro-abortion group had put up a display showing their support. Some members of a pro-life student group came along and started tearing it down because they didn't agree with it. What do you think the reaction would be?

Passing students paused to watch King debate the moral implications of abortion with Pointers for Life members, and even some who supported abortion rights said they supported the group's right to protest.

"You don't have to agree with this. I don't agree with this, but they have just as much right to be here as the Pro-Choice Alliance," said student Colleen Kiefer.

Only some who supported "abortion rights" thought it was OK for the pro-life group to protest? Wow, how very tolerant of them. It must be the liberal streak in them.

Who cares about free speech when an angry lefty college student disagrees with you? Free speech only counts when it fits into the liberal -- and in this case, pro-abortion -- agenda. Too bad these students never got the message.

11
comments:

You know, he doesn't say what awful things should happen to him in the event he fails to pull each and every single cross out of the ground, but it's clear from his comments that the 1973 Supreme Court decision obliges us all to make sure no dissent can be voiced to SCOTUS decisions, even unpopular ones.

Going by that logic, I should do whatever I can to make sure all Bush-bashing blogs, including Huffington Post entries, are properly hacked so no one can read them. And so should you.

After all, I'm told the Supreme Court handed George Bush the presidency in 2000.

I'm not saying this is right, but c'mon. Terrorists (yeah, I said it) have been bombing women's clinics for years. People have been attacked and killed over this issue. So forgive me if I think your indignation over a bunch of pulled-up crosses rings a little phony.

And for the record, I've never heard of anyone who is "pro-abortion." All we ask is safe, legal, and rare. 60% of Americans agree.

No, it's an all or nothing proposition. It destroys human life, or else it doesn't. No in-between. And if it doesn't destroy human life, there is no reason whatsoever to keep it "rare." The "rare" argument is pure sophistry.

So yes, Bill Clinton did use those words. Anyone who hasn't been living in a hole on the Planet Uranus for the last twelve years, know by now that just because Clinton said something, don't make it so.

No, it's an all or nothing proposition. It destroys human life, or else it doesn't. No in-between. And if it doesn't destroy human life, there is no reason whatsoever to keep it "rare." The "rare" argument is pure sophistry.

Well, since 60% of Americans think it should be legal, and this is a democracy (more or less), it should be legal.

Regardless of whether it "destroys a human life" or not, it's a destructive process on a lot of levels, so yes, there is good reason to keep it rare. It's only sophistry if you have no image of how to keep it rare. A lot of organizations have done good work on how to do this, but because of this "all or nothing" mentality, their voices don't get heard above the din of rants and tirades that dominate this discussion.

I'd like to see where that number came up. If it requires including the provision of "To protect the life of the mother", and/or "In cases of rape", then it is not a valid statistic, because many of the people who are extremely opposed to abortion would grant those exemptions, even if they would not support using something like a "morning after" drug.

I'm waiting for the recent laws making it a murder charge to kill a fetus in the case of a pregnant woman being attacked to bump head-first into the legality of abortion.

Well, since 60% of Americans think it should be legal, and this is a democracy (more or less), it should be legal.

So I've submitted for your review a logical conundrum that is entirely valid as an observation of contradiction in the pro-abortion talking points...and your best response is to outsource the thinking to someone else.

See, the point can't be argued because there is no argument to support it. You decry the "all or nothing mentality" but how in the world can there be shades of gray involved? It's an impossibility. The act either requires a murder of a human being to take place or else it doesn't.

Eight in 10 or more say an abortion should be legal to save the woman's life, to preserve her health, or when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest. A much smaller majority, 54 percent, supports legal abortion if there's evidence the baby will be physically impaired.

However, 57 percent oppose abortion solely to end an unwanted pregnancy — "if the mother is unmarried and does not want the baby." And opposition soars to about seven in 10 or more for so-called "partial-birth abortions" or abortions conducted in the sixth month of pregnancy or later.

As a reminder, when we engage in spirited debate about abortion, it's generally accepted that if you 1) would approve of the procedure to preserve the life and health of the mother, 2) would further approve of the procedure if the pregnancy was the result of rape, but 3) disapprove of it "solely to end a pregnancy" -- the general consensus among pro-choice AND pro-life advocates is that it would be fair to label your position as PRO-LIFE. With varying sentiments from one side to the other. But both sides would generally agree that is what you are.

So baz -- going by your logic -- six in ten of us are actually pro-life, therefore that is exactly what our "law of the land" ought to be.

Uh. I just wish for once I was around when these people did these things. Then the video would be "Indignant Roderick King Complains of Unfair Treatment" because I'd sling him over my shoulder and take him to campus police. Who the hell protests free speech in the name of free speech?

So you'd be willing to allow legal abortions in the cases of rape, incest, to preserve the woman's health, and if the child is "impaired", but not as a strictly elective procedure?

That's what it sounds like you're saying. But you also said that it's either murder or it's not. So I'm confused about where you stand.

But at some point, it transitions from tissue and cells into "life." I don't want to get into when this actually happens except to say that there's no agreement on when this happens. Until there is agreement, I don't think anyone can call it murder. Until about a hundred years ago, the line was drawn at what they called "quickening," which is basically baby's first noticeable movements. No one would accept that nowadays, and I'm sure in 50 years, our current ideas will seem equally quaint.

Actually, what we're trying to do is wring some kind of consistency out of your position. We haven't gotten to my own feelings on it just yet, except to say that if society's outlook on abortion looks palatable only because we're twisting around from one moment to the next on our definitions, then maybe that outlook isn't worth having.

As far as agreement, well, right now we're split right down the middle on this. "Real" people, who actually vote and pay taxes and have to follow the rules, say abortion should possibly be allowed in cases of rape or incest or where the mother's health is at risk -- if none of those apply, then the procedure should be off the table, and "partial birth" abortion should absolutely be outlawed.

Our advocacy groups, on the other hand, have taken a consistent anti-male approach to this. If the man wants the child and the woman doesn't, then life has not begun. If the woman wants the child and the man doesn't, then life has begun. Our advocacy groups say, the number of months doesn't matter. What matters is that women be recognized, and that they become the first minority victim group to be granted power of life and death -- when they aren't even a minority victim group.

You say this should be some kind of "democracy." If you really do feel that way, I would expect you wouldn't want to be defending the status quo. Because the status quo doesn't have much to do with Roe v. Wade or trimesters or "when does it begin" or any of the like. The status quo is all about giving advocacy groups exactly what they want, and to hell with The People.

War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.-- John Stuart Mill

Feel free to e-mail me at cassyblog@hotmail.com about anything you'd like; you can also add me on MySpace or Facebook. I welcome all questions and comments; criticism and praise. However, for anyone planning to send hate-mail: keep in mind that anything you send me may end up getting published. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you!